WaltJRimmer

WaltJRimmer , 4 months ago

I guess they’re trying to insinuate that there’s a conflict of interest because he worked for a government agency and Wikileaks leaked documents pertaining to that government agency.

But, like… That would be like saying no judge could oversee the case of someone who attacked a courthouse because they work for the same legal system. That would be a real loophole in the law if by breaking the right ones, you just couldn’t be tried anymore.

WaltJRimmer , 7 months ago

I can almost understand the Personal Liberties Libertarian, which I think is what the philosophy was originally supposed to be about. But we often see Corpo-National Libertarians or Totally-Not-An-Anarchist-I-Swear Libertarians, and both of those are baffling to me.

WaltJRimmer , 7 months ago

Most people don’t actually know what logic is. I would ask him to define logic to see where he’s coming from. Because most people either don’t have a definition or if they do it’s different than the one the person they’re talking to has. But to do that, you’ll also want a definition you could explain to someone else going into asking the question.

WaltJRimmer , 7 months ago

Yeah. If this hadn’t been banned already in Canada, it makes me wonder what other laws I just assumed were common in Western republics and democracies actually aren’t.

WaltJRimmer , 7 months ago

Well, time to fill my life with meaningless debauchery, because it’s not like there’s a future to plan for.

WaltJRimmer , 8 months ago

Wait, wait, wait… The average middle-class voter who is struggling to get by is starting to turn away from the Tories and their leader’s suggestion is to reduce taxes on the wealthiest people? Not to improve services or perhaps address the issues that drove former conservative party voters to Labour. No. Cutting the taxes of the elite, further reducing funding for services that the majority of voters use or rely on is the obvious answer.

WaltJRimmer , 8 months ago

I wonder how they’ll choose who gets crushed to death at every screening.

WaltJRimmer , 8 months ago

You know… I was the last man to sleep with her.

• A frog, probably.

WaltJRimmer , 8 months ago

I also noticed that both here on Lemmy and over on Reddit that there’s been a push of pro-Russian talking points and a huge push towards Islamaphobia for the past few days, starting just before the attacks this weekend.

I understand there’s going to be some natural anger over the attack, but the amount of accounts I’ve seen, especially noticeable here on Lemmy because we just don’t have as many users, who are saying things like, “This is just what Muslims are like,” and, “Western countries accept these kinds of people, so expect them to do the same there,” and other racist bullshit talking points. They’ve also been painting the ongoing conflict as unquestionably one-sided in Israel’s favor.

It’s depressing but kind of to be expected that there’s a psyops campaign going on trying to get people outraged at not just Hamas, not just Palestine, but all of Islam right now while simultaneously trying to paint Ukrainian surrender and pro-Russian propaganda. This horrible act of terror was either in part planned by Russia or at the very least is seen as an easy opportunity to try and weaken Western support of repelling their invasion of Ukraine. Just spending a little time in the wrong circles on social media should make that obvious.

WaltJRimmer , 8 months ago

$400m for the rights alone. It doesn’t talk about cost of production.

Meaning they’re looking to make that rights cost back across the trilogy rather than from one film, but they’re constantly adding costs along the way.

WaltJRimmer , 8 months ago

One of the things that made me really like Sanders when he was first campaigning for president was when I looked up his record on American war and he had a voting record that tended to follow a quote from him that amounted to something like (paraphrasing), “War should be the last resort, but if a war is started, we need to see it fully see it through.”

It’s not like siding with Ukraine and getting into that conflict is supporting warfare. It’s seeking to prevent warmongers from profiting off a senseless war. The idea that abandoning Ukraine to just be invaded and allowing Russia to get whatever they want by force is an, “Anti-war,” stance is fucking absurd.

WaltJRimmer , 8 months ago

Is it actually reducing harm to fight to the last Ukrainian though?

When Russia is trying to commit genocide against Ukraine? Yes.

WaltJRimmer , 8 months ago

I thought Lemmy was supposed to be the best free speech alternative

I don’t think there’s any useful definition of a “good” free speech website. Because everyone’s going to disagree on the criteria of what makes one good. Myself, I like more moderation, but I like that moderation to be held accountable in an attempt to keep the moderation higher quality and honest. Some people see free speech as no moderation, total anarchy, and I hate that, I’ve seen some websites that tried that, it turned into hate speech and revenge porn and other terrible things very quickly.

WaltJRimmer , 9 months ago

Twenty tracks? You whippershnappers don’t know how good you got it! When I was growing up, we only had eight!

WaltJRimmer , 9 months ago

It’s weird to me that he’s lumping all comic book movies together and acting like they’re the problem. We keep having trash movies churned out by studios because they make money. That’s been true since at least the nineteen-forties if not earlier. Hell, I’m really just talking about the ones where enough of them still survive that you can go find them. Earlier, in the silent era, yeah, you had trash get made quickly and churned out so that people would pay a dime to watch it. I don’t get how a single genre is supposed to be the culmination that’s ruining cinema.

But, here’s the thing. Have movies changed over the years? Absolutely. Scorcesie’s movies have changed over the years! His style has changed, his vision has changed. What sells tickets has changed. How studios are producing films based on what they think will make them money has changed. It’s been discussed before that the fall of video rentals and the rise of streaming has changed what kinds of movies studios are willing to put their money behind and how they’re less likely to take a risk on something than they used to be. That’s a problem. That’s a big problem because it’s reduced the number of small-budget and medium-budget studio films. None of that can be blamed on comic book adaptations.

And there’s nothing inherently wrong with a comic book adaptation. Marvel movies are overly formulaic and especially since Disney bought them overly safe. Even in the ones I like, I can just feel that Disney touch that makes me go, “Ew,” sometimes. DC’s movies have been mismanaged with an unfit vision helming its original run from the start. So the big series, yes, I’ll admit, they’re kind of shit cinema. I still enjoy some of them, but they’re kind of shit cinema. There are plenty of shit crime movies and thrillers and other things like that, but I’m not going to start yelling about how they’re killing cinema and we have to fight against them. Why do comic book adaptations get singled out as artless trash when there’s a constant stream of hollow feel-good romance films that get churned out every year? Do those formulaic vacuous sap-fests (some of which I love and will watch whenever I need a good cry, I’m really not knocking them) really merit a pass yet for some reason comic books require this war be waged by filmmakers against them? I really don’t see how they’re the problem.

And you can come in and say things like, “He’s just stirring the pot to promote his film,” but I don’t think so. Scorsese has had a lot to say about modern filmmaking even when he doesn’t have a project on the table. He’s talked about his feelings on modern film culture, comic book adaptations, using the word content to describe any form of media, and more. I really don’t think he’s doing it to bring attention to any project so much as he just really feels very strongly that movies have changed and change is bad? Is that really what it is? Because some of the stuff he sees as a problem, yeah, I agree, it’s an issue. But other stuff like this, even if there is a problem, your aim at what the problem really is is just completely off.

WaltJRimmer , 9 months ago

I don’t really know how you can threaten someone when you need them more than they need you.

If you leave town, where are you going to go? The city doesn’t need you. If you’re not making what you want/need here, go ahead, leave, the city won’t be hurt by it. You will, though. Because you’ll have to pack up your business, set it up somewhere else, and hope that they do the things you want them to. It’ll be expensive for you, won’t mean a thing to the city.

So how is it a threat?

WaltJRimmer , 9 months ago

You joke, but I’ve seen those kinds of arguments, especially online.

Some time back, someone argued that global warming was a self-solving problem because the oceans reflect light and heat energy back out into space, so as the earth warms and the oceans rise, the ability to reflect that heat will increase and we could even go back into an ice age because of it.

That is, of course, not really how it’s going to go. Massive ecological collapse and possible human extinction would occur due to the initial warming, first off, even before you get to the arguments about… Everything else at the crux of that.

For a long time, one of the talking points of climate change denial wasn’t that it wasn’t happening but that it was normal for us to go through heating and cooling cycles, so just deal with it and wait it out, we survived the last ice age so we can survive this heat wave, right? But again, that’s mostly bullshit.

WaltJRimmer , 9 months ago

I always enjoyed the US Godzilla films

Always?

Like… Always?

WaltJRimmer , 9 months ago

So did I. Loved the movie as a kid. I haven’t actually had the nerve to revisit it because I have no idea what I’ll think of it going back to it today.

WaltJRimmer , 9 months ago

USAers or United Statesians

WaltJRimmer , 9 months ago

If Chicken can be a language, that can be a language!

And I don’t mean the actually useful programming language. I mean the esolang one where the only valid character is Chicken.

WaltJRimmer , 9 months ago

Even if he goes to prison, which if he’s convicted there’s a good chance he gets something more similar to house arrest due to his position as a former president, he is 100% not going to be in general population. I believe he’s guilty and hope that if the trial proves that that he’s convicted. But people imagining him in the chow line in an orange jumpsuit are fooling themselves.

WaltJRimmer , 9 months ago

Federal appeals are more difficult and more rare. The state charges he’ll have an easier time appealing against, though. Lots of questions still up in the air about how all that will go, though. Unless he’s barred from office, there’s a chance he does become president again, which would make things incredibly complicated. There’s also the question of him appealing to the Supreme Court and them simply overturning anything they can that’s been brought against him. I find these unlikely, but they’re possible. For the USA, this is the first time someone in that high of an office has gone to trial like this, and we’re going to be having to make some answers on the spot.

WaltJRimmer , 10 months ago

Did they quit or did they go on strike? I’m not familiar with the show or its behind-the-scenes happenings.

WaltJRimmer , 10 months ago

Only once, but then it’s rare that a show needs to be canceled more than one time.

WaltJRimmer , 10 months ago

Thank you very much for the context!

WaltJRimmer , 10 months ago

And Family Guy, which is why I said rarely.

And I suppose there are arguments to be made in either direction when a show gets “resurrected” but it’s decades later, like Rosanne. If you count that, then it’s actually becoming more common for shows to be canceled multiple times.

WaltJRimmer , 10 months ago

As a Unitedstatesian myself, while I like to keep informed of important events, even I like to get a break from the constant stream of the same news or meme or whatever being shared a dozen times, or in the case of today’s mugshot, 70+ times.

WaltJRimmer , 10 months ago

I can’t speak to their usage, but mine was a reference to this song.

WaltJRimmer , 10 months ago

Dontrio was the first that came to my mind.

WaltJRimmer , 10 months ago

I don’t know shit about guns, so someone, please tell me, is this at all practical? Like, is this a surprisingly usable combination or a ridiculous pairing?

WaltJRimmer , 10 months ago

While I’m not quite that blunt, I do tend to take a utilitarian approach to institutions. When I went to school, I went there to attend classes, learn, work, the like. When I went to a job, I went there to work. I don’t really know how to approach people; the few times I’ve tried I’ve only made people uncomfortable, and mostly I just sit on my own and focus on what I’m “supposed” to be doing.

This left me burning out with depression and failing out of university, unable to find a job and being some kind of unhirable that I don’t know why or how to fix as I’ve spent three years looking for anything that will hire me with no takers, and I have absolutely no friends. I’m a man in my thirties with almost no work experience, no marketable skills, no connections, living off the kindness of family, and just ever-growing gaps in an almost empty resume.

Don’t be like that triceratops. And for the love of fuck, don’t be like me!

WaltJRimmer , 10 months ago

I have got to stop oversharing. I just deleted a three-paragraph explanation of shit you didn’t ask for. Sorry abut that. Anyway, it was a BS in Mathematics.

WaltJRimmer , 10 months ago

Hahaha! Uh, they weren’t great for a combination of factors, especially in my last year when I failed Real Analysis. Twice…

I’ve tried coding. Not very good at it. Scripting can be fun, but I’m just really, really crap at it. Took the 101/102 classes for CS as one of my science requirements. I actually took 101 twice because I had taken it in community college first and the credit didn’t transfer. Three CS classes, never finished a final project. I couldn’t ever get them close to working for some reason. Like, I got a C or better as a final grade without ever turning in a final project in each class, but still. My practical application of software engineering is, well, impractical.

As it is, a portfolio and networking (heh) tend to be the most important that I’ve heard from a lot of people when it comes to software engineering. I’ve tried to dabble, currently trying to battle my depression enough to actually work on making a point-and-click game in Adventure Games Studio. And my progress is just… Abysmal.

WaltJRimmer , 10 months ago

Here I expected this video: youtu.be/QChWIFi8fOY?si=umDKch8nJEBGcbj8

WaltJRimmer , 10 months ago

I don’t fetishize them and I don’t have animosity against people who use CGI responsibly.

My problems come with a sacrifice of art and a sacrifice of the workers.

Let’s start with the workers. Technical jobs in filmmaking have always been kind of shitty, working long hours and usually not getting a whole lot of credit with very little job security. And you don’t have to go back that far to see a lot of techs getting themselves hurt because there weren’t as good of safety standards for them. So it’s not like it’s a new thing. But a lot of studios have been treating CG as a miracle cure ever since it was first used, and it’s created a real problem for the people actually making these movies. A lot of the CG is rushed and its creators underpaid for the work being asked of them. And this leads into the point about art because while CG can look great or it can look shit, when you rush it, the chances of it looking terrible are far greater. That’s true for practical effects as well, yes, but people seem to accept that practical effects will take time while they’re pushing CG studios to produce faster and faster with ever-worsening results.

But then let’s really talk about the art of it. There’s a lot of art that going into CG, and I think that’s wonderful. There are things it can do that almost nothing else can. It has been used to great effect for decades now! CG isn’t an inherently bad thing. But there are also things it doesn’t do as well. And one of the problems I have with CG-heavy films isn’t really that they use CG but that they use it when it isn’t the best tool for the job. Or they rush it or cheap out on it as talked about in the previous paragraph. There are different types of directors and some prefer tightly controlled sets while others let things come up naturally and then find ways to incorporate that. Practical effects, they’re never fully controllable. They’re not made in a sterile environment. They create a little unpredictability. They make a little chaos. And that chaos can bring a lot of personality to things. It’s usually really small, but it’s there. The best CG also has personality, sure, and I’m not certain how to describe it, but it’s different. Because in CG, every frame is hand-crafted like you’re doing animation. And I love animation, but if you’re doing something in live action anyway, I feel you should lean in to your medium and use its strengths. And one of the strengths of live-action is that there are things, physical things, and if you take all that away, I mean, come on. My feeling on a lot of the films that are basically done entirely on digital sets and almost entirely CG except for maybe an actor’s face here and there, and sometimes not even then, it’s, why not just stop living the lie and make it fully animated?

So, yeah, summary, for me, I don’t like the culture around CG at the moment which has become notoriously harsh, and I miss the personality that practical effects bring to some things as well as disliking the feeling of hegemony in a lot of films when it comes to their effects. It’s not an inherent dislike of CG, it’s disliking how it’s being misused.

WaltJRimmer , 10 months ago

Most things are probably fine, though Windows updates might do something funky or just put it back from where you threw out that trash.

But Edge is a different story. Microsoft in their infinite wisdom decided to make Edge, their web browser, essential for Windows Explorer, their file manager and desktop among other things, to function properly.

So if you get rid of Edge, things can get kinda fucky. I haven’t looked into if someone has made a workaround, I know that there are modified “debloated” Windows installs that do some heavy duty mucking about in there, but I don’t know if anyone’s figure out how to give Edge the ax without making your desktop freak out.

WaltJRimmer , 10 months ago

Sadly, with recent events, all I can think about with this is how Linus Sebastion would go on the WAN Show and say things like, “You don’t need a union unless you have bad management, and I never want my employees to need a union.”

WaltJRimmer , 10 months ago

I never knew my Set Theory professor was so against workers’ rights!

WaltJRimmer , 10 months ago

I mean, a union is simply a way for workers to organize independently from management. While it’s useful for countering bad management and things like that, that’s not its only purpose. And anyone saying that it is either doesn’t know as much about unions as they think or is anti-union while trying not to say as much directly.

WaltJRimmer , 10 months ago

Sadly, with recent events, all I can think about with this is how Linus Sebastion would go on the WAN Show and say things like, “You don’t need a union unless you have bad management, and I never want my employees to need a union.”

WaltJRimmer , 10 months ago (edited 10 months ago)

She didn’t just think she was a witch, which I was mostly OK with because religions are weird and stuff, so I thought as long as it doesn’t reach the realm of life-affecting problems, it’s a non-issue.

She also believed she had friends who were werewolves, she could do magic, the date of your birth determined your personality, because a planet was in retrograde good things were about to happen, vampires started the Red Cross so they could always have access to blood, and, oh yeah, along with her two mortal parents she also had an incubus second father and that she was half-demon and that’s why she liked sex when she wasn’t supposed to.

That… That girl needed some serious help, but claimed that she was well-adjusted and fit to help other people instead. Because, of course, she was also an empath…

Edit: I want to make something clear that it suddenly struck me I haven’t; with all this craziness that she believed, that young woman had her life a hell of a lot more together than I did or do. She graduated university while I flunked out, she found a job while I’m being rejected every time that I apply, she found a low-rent apartment to live in while I’m still living with my folks. Don’t get me wrong, girl had some trauma and had some problems. But she was contributing to society while I’m fucking around on the internet because I can’t seem to make anything of myself.

WaltJRimmer , 10 months ago

It really was. While there were bits and pieces of this that came up during the relationship, the bulk of this came out as we were breaking up. She had been abused as a kid, though I’m not sure the extent of that abuse. At the very least, she was abused by being effectively abandoned. She said she fended for herself, mostly eating canned food she got for herself through grade school, things like that.

I was upset for a while, she’s not someone I want anything to do with, but mostly I just feel bad for her. She was traumatized as a kid, she receded into a delusion to try and escape that, and her delusion came to define her to the point where she got incredibly defensive if you tried to challenge its reality. She had said that she tried therapy before but that it didn’t work because she knew better than the therapists how to deal with her problems, and I’m certain what that actually means is that they tried to talk her out of her delusion and she wasn’t having any of it.

I really hope she got the help she needs, but I sadly doubt it.

WaltJRimmer , 10 months ago

If you think horoscopes don’t make any sense, you’re really going to be boggled by its sister, numerology.

WaltJRimmer , 10 months ago

I don’t remember exactly how old she was, but we were in our last years of university (I failed out, she graduated) so she was definitely in her early twenties, 22-24, somewhere in there.

And, yeah, no, my amateur and as such meaningless guess of a diagnosis was also that part of the delusion was a need to feel special. She talked about how most other people didn’t know the truth, they couldn’t know the truth, because she had magic power that let her know things about the world that normal humans couldn’t. You get that sort of language in conspiracy theorists and other types of people who want to feel special, they want to be in on some secret that everyone else can’t be. So I’d say that’s definitely part of it. But I also think, especially with her believing in a third parent when she was initially abandoned by her father and effectively abandoned by her mother until her father got custody of her again, I think most of it stems from her trauma as a child. Even that need to feel special, with no real parental figure for many of her formative years (I don’t remember how old she said she was when her father regained custody of her), probably stemmed from that lack of anyone encouraging her.

But, ultimately, I don’t know. She didn’t tell me half of this stuff until we were breaking up. And I’m not a psychologist, and she very much needed one.

WaltJRimmer , 10 months ago

His NAME is ALEX!

WaltJRimmer , 10 months ago

That was one part of a whole that a never got anywhere near finding out the entire story. With that and her stories of being damn near abandoned as a child, it really worried me as to what might have happened to her that she never felt free enough to tell me.

I tried to explain, “Like, no, that’s normal.” And she was just insistent that it was not. I didn’t know about the believing herself to be half-succubus until later, but when I found that out, it kind of clicked into place that something happened to her and she just cannot believe that a normal person should enjoy sex the way she does. And that is… Really troubling.

WaltJRimmer , 10 months ago

Started out as co-workers in a university work-study job, had a short relationship.